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All the major high street electronics retailers have now stopped selling
analogue sets after quietly running down their stocks in recent months,
in preparation for the switch to digital terrestrial television (DTT) by
2012.
Last month ( June 2010) , for the first time, there were no sales of
analogue TV sets in the UK, according to figures published today by the
organisation responsible for helping viewers switch,Digital UK.
With 5 million homes now transferred to a DTT-only signal and 11 million more
due to switch by the end of 2011, new analogue TV sets are of little use to
viewers.

You don’t tend to make money betting against Australia. Until now.

This week, the government pledged to bring the budget into surplus in 2012-
13, three years ahead of schedule. On May 11, Treasurer Wayne Swan said
Australia is seeking a “solid buffer” against a European debt crisis that
threatens to scuttle the global recovery.
Good luck with that. Europe’s crisis is threatening Australia’s fiscal health. If
you thought the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. shook markets,
just wait until Greece or other euro-area “laggards,” as economist Nouriel
Roubini calls them, pull out of the single currency.
Australia’s aim to bring its budget into surplus may fizzle as one of three
unexpected consequences of Europe’s turmoil in the Asia-Pacific region. The
other two: a marked Chinese slowdown and the euro area turning Japanese.

Asia has been avoiding the fallout from Greece. Growth is robust, Asian banks
are in decent shape and governments have more latitude to boost spending.
Europe’s troubles might still morph into a second leg of the global crisis that
Lehman’s demise helped trigger.

It’s one thing for Asia to stand its ground when the U.S. is reeling. It’s quite
another to repeat that feat when a second economic region of comparable size
plunges, especially when you consider how a prolonged European malaise
would affect China. By William Pesek - May 13, 2010 3:00 AM GMT+0800
Bloomberg Opinion

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